Another coincidence

Another coincidence

Those of you who read my blog will know that for a while now I have been going on about the difference between coincidences and answers to prayer.

More recently I have been checking through my memory banks to bring to mind some of those ‘answered prayers’ / ‘coincidences’ that happen to those who pray and follow Jesus.  Looking back, I regret not keeping mementos of some of those incidents.  Perhaps from now on I will do, however in life you often just say,’ thank you God’ and move on, though I hope I am grateful and really thankful and have regard for these specific answers.

The memento I could have kept of the story I am about to tell you, could have been copies of my bank statements, and even though I didn’t its still, nevertheless, a great answer to prayer and true.

This answer to prayer (or coincidence depending on your perspective) took place before UK decimalisation, so young readers might struggle with the figures, not understanding the notion of 240 pence making one pound.  Anyway, at this time I was living in the North of England, my salary was the grand total of £8.10s or for younger readers £8.50p.  My wife was the full time secretary for a local school and earned a grand total of £5.00 per week;  to put these amounts into perspective my rent was £5.10s per week (£5.50p), as you can see there was not a great deal of financial elbow room, there was very little money left over for frivolities.

Unfortunately for us we had somehow run up a deficit at the bank to the tune of £31.12s 32d and the bank unfortunately had allowed us to go overdrawn by this amount without any permission.  Now, however, they had called me in and wanted their money back.  I, of course, had said, yes, I would sort it out.  When I arrived home I told my wife that I had no idea what to do and that we had no chance of funding the deficit.

My wife suggested writing them a cheque, explained that would not work as that was where the money came from in the first place. We agreed that we needed to pray for God to help us, we needed a £31.12s 32d miracle, and frankly I had no idea where such a miracle could come from. In these situations, I find, that you always want to provide God with the answer that you have trusted him, in prayer, to sort out; I hope you know what I mean.

Later that week, I had a letter from an old friend, he wrote to me enclosing a cheque made out to myself and Pauline; the letter went something like this.

 As you know some years ago I had a serious motor accident, it’s taken years for the insurance company to make a settlement to us, but finally it has come.  I wanted at this time to say thank you to friends who helped me and my wife during this awful time, and so now I have the financial settlement I thought I would like to send you all a monetary thank you.  So enclosed is a cheque.  I know you will think that this is a funny amount £31.12s.32p but just to explain that for you, I had quite a few friends who helped us at that time so what I have done is taken the amount of our settlement, deducted 10%, I then divided that 10% between all the friends who helped me at the time and so that is why it is such a funny thank you amount.

Well of course my friend wanted to explain his reasoning behind the division of the thank you money, but what my friend did not know was that that cheque was to the exact £sd (pounds, shillings and pence for younger readers) amount of my unofficial overdraft.

When I think about this, it’s totally mind boggling, how everything came together in such perfect sync; the accident years before, the insurance company taking its time, the amount of friends my friend felt had helped them at the time, the long period of time it took to sort the settlement, that my friend was writing out the cheques during the week that I was concerned about my overdraft, the prayer my wife and I prayed that week, and that very week the letter arrived containing a cheque for the exact amount. 

It’s all just coincidence I hear some say, well how about a Father God who loves his children, knows their need and answers prayer.  How about that for an answer?

Adrian Hawkes

For adrianhawkes.blogspot.com

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Edited by Technicolour Text